Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Stack Overflow for roleplaying games

Stack Overflow is a new style site for getting questions answered. Opened two years ago it works through anybody asking a question about programming with anybody allowing to answer. Where it differs from a forums and similar sites is the reputation system for rating questions and answers. It is highly refined compared to moderation system, exalts, and other similar systems. Some get addicted to building reputations, and those who have the highest have truly earned it. So far it proven highly effective for getting programming questions answered.

Now they opened up Stack Overflow system for just about any topic. They tried going commerical but their original approach didn't work. So they decided to make it free but with a catch. The catch before they host a site it has to go through several phases to see if it has enough interest.

Sure enough there is a site being generated for Roleplaying games. It is in the commitment phase where people promise to use it during it's beta. When enough have committed then it will open to beta. If it is used enough during beta a permanent site will open.

I think it will be highly useful to the roleplaying community to have a Stack Overflow sites dedicated to answer questions. The reputation system keep the signal noise ratio very high and I will think it work really well. So head on over and sign up so it get into beta.

Bat in the Attic Games

How to make a Sandbox

The Old School Renaissance

To me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It is about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

What are RPGs?

A game where the players play individual characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

Rules are an aide to help the referee adjudicate actions and to help the players interact with the setting.

Dice are used to inject uncertainty which make a tabletop RPG campaign more interesting than "Let's Pretend".

The only thing a player needs to do to roleplay a character is to act if he or she was really there in the setting in that situation.